


Desire is no light thing

by vuas



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Anne Carson is up in this bitch, Dom/sub Undertones, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Light Dom/sub, Rey is on a mission to ~thoroughly~ study the classics amirite, Size Difference, Teacher-Student Relationship, academia au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:00:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22042966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vuas/pseuds/vuas
Summary: They really, really should not be doing this.Especially in his office.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 20
Kudos: 378





	Desire is no light thing

**Author's Note:**

> Hi yeah I’d like to order another self indulgent AU?

  
There are plenty of reasons why they shouldn’t be doing this. Why it’s so awfully wrong. Her mouth presses nervously to his though, and it’s sweet and the constant tremor of unsureness in her head goes quiet, usurped by the gentle, warm touch of his fingers against the fat in her cheek.

She has never felt anything so slow as this kiss. A kind of agony—no fear but—instead a bubble of heart-pounding euphoria flutters determinedly against her belly button.

He—holds her face? Cups her chin. As if he wants to keep her close and still, so he can keep kissing her. As if she’s something precious and perfect for him. And then when she makes a little squeaky noise (she wants more, sudden and hot) he pulls back, surprise coloring his features. 

“Please,” he mumbles, his nose brushing hers. “Tell me you want this.”

“Yes” she manages to choke out, entirely too quickly. She feels like her lungs are full of water, like she’s drunk, blistering or sick on something. “Yes, Ben—please—“

She’s ready to get on her raw knees and beg but it’s not in Ben’s nature to let her suffer—his arm flies out and tugs her, sprawling into his lap. The next kiss is brutal, savage like the way he moves when he’s filled with duty and righteousness. It’s like kissing something malevolent, fiery, and Rey melts helplessly against it, curling up smaller in his lap if only to feel how big he is around her, cherishing her.

“Professor,” she manages to squeak, each breath hitched and her voice pitchy. She winces at the sound of it, so pornographic. He wants to swallow her, seems to find her rare helplessness charming, pressing hot kisses to her throat. As if he’s going to tear out her heart with one bite.

His hand is a burning cross on her quivering thigh, the one compulsively tensing and relaxing. It slides higher and Rey whines, to her embarrassment. Her face flushes with heat—remembering that she rubbed herself raw last night to the very dream of this moment. His fingers and blunt and calloused, nowhere near the delicate movements she’s use to using in her twin bed late at night, the other hand clamped over her mouth to stifle moans.

She hisses when he touches bare skin. She hears the deep groan somewhere in his chest and her fingers curl sharply into his suit jacket. He prods gingerly for a few moments before letting out a disgruntled noise and hefting her up onto the desk. He flips her skirt up, coaxes her underwear down her thighs, and then there’s just a ghost of a breath at her center.

Rey whines. “Miss Nima,” he says plaintively, and Rey keens at his voice, dark and hypnotic. She determinedly tugs at his hair. “Good girls are patient,” he soothes.

* * *

_Three weeks earlier_

  
  
It starts when she shows up at his office, disgruntled and pink-faced, waving her midterm in the air. She’s a fiery little Valkyrie, demanding to know why he’s crossed out everything—even her thesis, in red pen. 

“I followed the instructions,” she says, practically vibrating in the cramped seat in front of his desk. “I proved my point, I provided plenty of examples, outside sources—“

He feels anger building up in his chest now, indignant that this little girl thinks she knows even a quarter the material necessary to discuss an Introduction to Greek Plays. He doesn’t know why he can’t just be kind, like Poe down the hall with easy smiles and tactful sentences. He can hear his Mother’s voice in his head now, Ben, it’s not a big deal, just relax—

“Yes Miss Nima, plenty of sources? For a pitiful thesis balanced on the precipice of a loosely skimmed Wikipedia page? If you had done an ounce of proper research, you would realize that Jenning’s findings were excluded from the narrative about The Eumenides in 1986, based on the completely incorrectly-dated material he submitted to a non-peer reviewed journal.” He sneers at her, watching as her face drops into a scowl. “Alas, idiots begets idiots.” 

Her face is stark red, though she looks more angry with herself than embarrassed. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, well,” he snaps back, opening his book again as a dismissal. “If you had taken the time to show up to Friday recitation where I explained where to find proper research, perhaps you wouldn’t have turned in absolute garbage.”

The girl fumes for a second, her hands shaking where they hold her paper in her lap. “I know you said, in the beginning of the semester—that you wouldn’t accept rewrites—“

“No.” He says, keeping his response clipped, his eyes down on the most recent translation of Elektra. “I do not.”

“Please,” she says, voice quieter, her lilting accent coming out soft. “I’m not a literature major, I accept the fact that I don’t know how to do this, and I really need good grades—I can explain, really, you see, my schedule is a bit hectic, if you could just listen for a moment—“

“I am not in the business of making exceptions for sloppy slackers, Miss Nima. Perhaps you should’ve thought twice before registering if you are indeed incapable. Sometimes we deserve the bad things that happen to us.”

There’s silence, deader than all nine hells. The girl hardly even breathes. 

“Right,” she says sounding watery, and when he looks up, her pretty hazel eyes are bright with unshed tears. For a sinking moment he thinks so little of her for trying to cry her way out of it, but hardly a second passes before he realizes she’s darted out the door, refusing to let him see her cry.

* * *

He’s right of course—she should have gone to Friday recitations. But her shift at the Cantina ends at close, which always gets stretched to 2:30, sometimes 3am, even if she and Finn hustle with all the mops in the world. She could get another job, but leaving Maz and Finn to defend the honor of the popular bar seemed unfair, considering all they had done for her. So Rey worked eight hour shifts right after lecture six days a week save Sunday, during which she woke up at five to start barreling through her engineering homework.

All of this meant that when 8am Friday recitation rolled around, Rey more often than not snored through the beeping of her alarm. Even if she woke, she usually stumbled in late—like the very first day, when she nearly tripped trying to open the horrendously ancient wooden door , scraping it on the stone floor and announcing to everyone that she was twenty minutes late to a fifty minute class.

Most of the students simply let their gaze drift back to the front of the room, but Professor Ren’s look was nearly scalding down to the hairs on the back of her neck. She attempted a tiny, reproachful smile, but was met with the remorseless expression befitting a statue of an unbenevolent tsar.

“Sorry,” She had stammered, caught off guard by the lack of understanding, quickly thumping down in an empty seat. Her thoughts churned, wondering why this man had so little patience for a simple mistake. So she was late on the first week—had he never been late for anything in his entire life? Besides, she wasn’t late for heart surgery, it was just a simple introductory class lecture. For literature, of all things.

But things only got worse— she often barely made it to class on time, as her mechanics professor—of the class she had scheduled right before—liked to drone on well past the usual end time, and to top it off the engineering building was a fifteen minute walk on a good day—

Which meant two days a week, she barreled into her Greek Play lecture, out of breath from a full on sprint, and then usually proceeded to nearly fall asleep within the first ten minutes, only waking when a helpful student kicked her chair, or Professor Ren slammed a heavy text on her desk with a frosty look.

She had shown up groveling at her advisor’s office, but Skywalker just gently pat her shoulder and informed her there was nothing he could do; it was past add-drop, no other class fit her schedule, her academic scholarship had a stipulation that did not allow for her to take her last remaining gen ed during summer sessions, and that if she were to put the class off till next fall, she would lose her third year placement in the engineering program.

“I’m screwed,” she moaned, putting her head in her hands. “Professor Skywalker, you don’t understand—Ren really hates my guts, he’s going to make sure I fail—“

“Now don’t say that,” he says consolingly. “I hardly think a bright kid like you could be stopped by a little Lit requirement. And it’s only for half a semester more.”

Rey sniffs. “You really think I’ll survive this?”

“Well,” says Skywalker, stroking his beard. “It’s that or fail out of school.”

* * *

Finn and Rose fetter over her for an appropriate amount of time, kindly nodding heads when she complains about her stupid Greek Play class. Devoted friends, they vigorously chime in when she whines about how cruel and unbearable Professor Ren is. She feels a little better, more validated but the rejection and hopelessness still stings. If she doesn’t manage to pass this class by getting a near-perfect score on the final, then her life was over. Calling him by various names does help, though.

Asshole or not, a weekend passes after Rey’s midterm fiasco. She had spent half of those days glaring at the paper on her desk from the corner of her eye. It had been about the themes of justice and control in The Eumenides, and sure, she got most of the proper wording for her thesis from sparknotes, but that didn’t mean her paper didn’t make sense. It didn’t mean she deserved to fail.

Rey goes so far that next Monday—she does the reading in advance, looks up interpretations and scribes the main character’s names into her notebook for reference. She even manages to grab coffee, and slips out the door early of her mechanics lecture, and sits promptly in the front row. 

She’s there with her pencils out before Professor Ren even arrives, a triumphant smirk hidden behind the rim of her coffee cup.

The door is propped open, and grumpy, over-tired students trickle in with minutes to spare, shuffling feet and paper. Eventually Rey hears a familiar heavy set of footsteps down the hall, stalking closer and closer, bringing the brooding evil villain right into her trap.

He breezes past, close enough that Rey gets an odd whiff of his cologne—something that makes her brain purr, her mouth part slightly to breathe more of it in. Goosebumps shiver up her spine and down her arms.

The moment passes, and Rey shakes her head slightly to dislodge it.

When she looks up, she realizes he’s staring at her. His expression is so intent, but there’s an odd tinge of fond amusement, a quirk in his mouth that gives away a smile. He glances away, back down at his books almost immediately, but Rey replays the moment in her mind, struggling to categorize it.   
  


He’s—happy. Or at least, as close as the terrifying Ben Solo got to happy. That she’s pleased him by following his direction—showing him she could change, be better, be the girl he wants her to be.

She smothers a smile behind her hand, looking down at her papers. The sudden shift to camaraderie makes her feel...like she’s stumbled upon something delicate, almost. Something she could grow, preserve. 

Her brain, always looking for kindness in the wrong places, starts to churn away at this discovery. And it goes—and it goes—and it goes.

**Author's Note:**

> Lmfao not exactly sure where I’m gonna take this but I’m sure it will involve more nakey time


End file.
